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The proposed Columbus City Schools’ property-tax levy would provide preschool to all 4-year-olds in the district by 2020, its backers say. But the levy won’t raise nearly enough money to reach that goal.

It’s uncertain where the remaining millions it would take to achieve that goal would come from. But various officials said they hope that a mix of private, federal and state grants could be tapped to fill the gap.

Money from a proposed innovation fund of up to $50 million per year — controlled by a proposed nonprofit “public-private partnership” — could be tapped for pre-kindergarten, but there are few details about who would donate to that initiative.

“It may be something that they look at, but it’s not defined,” said Columbus schools spokesman Jeff Warner. “But the levy is critical to the piece.”

Despite that uncertainty, levy backers have repeatedly suggested that passing it guarantees preschool for all Columbus schoolchildren:

• “The levy includes funds for pre-K that will allow the district to provide all incoming CCS kindergartners with a quality pre-K (4-year-olds) experience by 2020,” according to the district’s website.

• “The levy would provide all 4-year-olds with access to a quality preschool experience by 2020,” said an independent analysis on the KidsOhio website.

• “Issue 50 provides preschool for all Columbus 4-year-olds,” Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus teachers union, wrote in an opinion column supporting the levy.

Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s education commission did recommend that, by 2020, every Columbus child entering kindergarten should have a quality pre-K experience. But when a district millage panel set up the levy, it included 1 mill, or $8.5 million per year, for pre-K among the total 9.01-mill levy. That could fall tens of millions of dollars short, levy backers acknowledge.

“It’s an aspirational goal,” said Coleman spokesman Dan Williamson. “It has always been the intent of the mayor that a public-private partnership will consider funding a number of things, including pre-K expansion. (But) I’m not saying that they’ll definitely fund these things.”

The education commission also calls on the city to contribute money to the innovation fund, but city officials thus far have pledged nothing.

The $8.5 million a year from the levy would be enough to provide quality five-day-a-week preschool for 970 to 1,133 children, based on cost projections developed by district committees. They found that it costs $7,500 to $8,750 per child per year, not including facilities costs, according to the district.

No one could say exactly how many students miss out on quality preschool now, but the district serves about 1,150 preschoolers, compared with around 5,000 kindergartners, Warner said.

Some of those children attend private preschools or federally funded Head Start programs, said Steve Votaw, executive director of Learn4Life.

“We don’t know the exact number of children who go from a pre-K experience into a Columbus City Schools kindergarten,” Votaw said. But based on interviews with parents, Votaw estimates about half of Columbus children get pre-K now. Some aren’t getting quality pre-K instruction, but something more like day care, he said.

That could mean about 2,750 new pre-K seats would be needed to close the gap by 2020, when it would cost $21 million to $24 million a year, excluding facilities.

“I don’t think there was a real thought-out plan on how to fund it,” Votaw said.

“We don’t have those answers today,” Williamson acknowledged, but “pre-K is at the top of (Coleman’s) list of priorities.”

Also unknown is how the program will roll out between this year and 2020, and when new preschool classes would come on line. That would depend on how many private providers would want to participate in the levy-funded program, Warner said.

The lack of details alarms East Side levy opponent Jon Beard.

“CCS has been less than transparent for the last year and a half,” Beard said. “They’re asking us to just trust them, but time and time again what they say doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.”